


Evidence

by cosmogyrals



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyrals/pseuds/cosmogyrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes Martha awhile to piece together the evidence - that she really is special in her own way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evidence

No matter where Martha goes, she can't escape the shadow of her predecessor. It's not something she's used to, and it certainly isn't something she likes. Being compared to someone else all the time rankles; why can't she be judged on her own merits? And now _she's_ starting to compare herself to Rose. Would Rose have come up with a rhyme for Shakespeare? Would she have gotten snatched by travellers on New Earth? Would she have been able to electrocute the pig-slaves? Would she have thought to get a DNA sample from the newly rejuvenated Lazarus? It haunts her whenever she's with the Doctor.

There's evidence of her time in the TARDIS, too. Martha keeps finding little things in places - a jacket here, a hair tie there, a bit of notepaper with what looks like a grocery list in definitely feminine handwriting. Signs of an interrupted domesticity that Martha knows she can never have. He won't let himself get close to anybody like that - won't let himself get close to _her_. She wonders what makes her so different - so apparently undeserving of the Doctor's regard. He's said that she's an equal partner, but is she really? Or is she just someone to fill the empty space that's left behind?

She watches over him while he's human, wondering if Rose would've been content to be his maid, or if she would have posed as his wife - if he would have been happy to have her do so. The calluses form on her hands as she works day in and day out, keeping an eye on him, making sure he's safe. She sneaks a few peeks at his journal, running a fingertip over the picture of a girl. Is it Rose? she wonders. The attention lavished upon it certainly makes her think it is, though she can't decipher his handwriting. She's looked through the journal, but she isn't in there anywhere.

When she forces him to become the Doctor again, tears glittering in her eyes, she tells him how much she loves him, whispers it under her breath as she watches him open the watch, her heart breaking once again. She loves the Doctor, but she's more real to John Smith than Rose is.

She stops thinking of Rose entirely when she travels around the world - she's too exhausted to focus on anything other than survival, other than spreading her tale to as many people as possible. But when she stands in the console room for the last time, looking at the Doctor, wishing he would finally just _understand_ , she remembers Rose again - and she thinks that what he needed this time was a Martha.

"D'you know what?" she says to him, grinning. "I am good."


End file.
